Pink & Purple

Surprise, surprise.. another friend of ours is having a girl! I'm wondering if boys are being made anymore these days. Here's Courtney and some of the girls at her shower.

Something else pink -- the strawberry cupcakes Bri and I made. Mmm. The icing tastes like strawberry ice cream. It's the Sprinkles wanna-be recipe we found on Pinterest. The actual cupcake turned out a little purple-ish, gray-ish, but those were Courtney's colors, so it worked out.

Hazel's favorite stuffed animal right now is Rosie (also pink) the bear. A week or two ago, I noticed she was doing things to Rosie that I do to her (ie. lay her down on a diaper, put her in the Bumbo, put the Baby-Vac tube up to her nose, etc.).
The other day I told Hazel I needed to change her diaper, so she ran and got Rosie and plopped her down on the diaper. (She does tend to be a bit more rough on Rosie than I am on her... I think??) So I went along with it and put a diaper on her. Then she obviously needed clothes, so Rosie got a t-shirt, a clip in her hair, a paci, and some shoes. Love this stage!!

Hazel also had her first playdoh experience. I figured she was mostly out of the put-everything-in-your-mouth stage, so I thought I'd give it a try. I found an easy, soft playdoh recipe and went with it. I should've done the traditional red or blue color because the purple didn't turn out so well. Hazel didn't seem to mind though. We used cookie cutters and all of that, but she just preferred it in a tupperware.

Concentrating to get that lid on...
Check out the piggy face.

Squishy playdoh, squishy thighs. Both are fantastic.

Happy Love Day

Valentine's weekend was great. I told James I'd love for him to plan a date where I didn't have to arrange anything, so it was nice to just get dressed and go out! We splurged on a nicer meal, and it was totally worth it. That was some delicious grub. I even got sick the next day because I ate so much.

I could probably write a whole post about our meal... but I won't. I'm just a person who appreciates a delicious, well-balanced bite of food. I also appreciate a good movie, and Mission Impossible was very entertaining. For the record, James was willing to see The Vow, but I told him I'd go see that with my girlfriends. What a sweet husband.
Hazel had a good Valentine's Day too. Jones drove her to the mall, and then they went on a boat ride and shared pretzels. Sweet little Jaxon joined them.

That night Hazel and I shared a heart pizza with ham and pineapple. How romantic!

She's the sweetest little valentine.

Happy Valentine's Day from our little lover.

Heather and James Come to Texas

We had another James in the house last week! My friend Heather got a new job and is occasionally required to travel to Dallas. I don't know if she's thrilled about working again, but I think it's pretty great because we get to pretend we're in college again and chit chat, cook, and watch movies. It was so fun to see her again and to see her little man, James, play with Hazel. They're only a month apart, and they make quite the cute couple. Unfortunately I didn't get to spend too much time with James as Hazel was extremely possessive. Little does she know we plan on having more children down the road.
Heather is from California and lives in Arizona now, so I had to expose her to some good BBQ for her first trip to Texas. I brought her to Rudy's because I love their turkey, spicy chop, and BBQ sauce. We have similar tastes, so she loved it just as much. Another hit was the chicken empanadas. We made them from scratch, and they were worth it because little James looved the filling - spicy pepper jack cheese and all. We also made homemade vanilla ice cream and mixed in my favorite -- cinnamon. Mmm. Heather was a convert.

Here are our cute little munchkins!

We had so much fun! Hopefully we get to see them again soon!

That FACE!

Hazel and I are kind of like sisters. We hang out all the time and have our ups and downs like all sisters. The only problem is I have to play Mom, too, and discipline her. I always thought I'd be a tough mom because I had practice being a school teacher. Well, it turns out it doesn't exactly transfer. When Hazel does something naughty, I try to put my game face on and say very sternly, "No." A couple seconds later, I can't keep a straight face! It happens almost every time... even when I'm actually really annoyed like when she yanks my hair and laughs or tries to hit me. I've even tried to pull her hair back, and she just looks at me like I'm crazy, which makes me laugh. Flicking doesn't work either because sometimes it turns out to be a sissy flick, which makes HER laugh. Oh boy. I actually know what works though, and it offends her to the core...that is to put her down and ignore her. It's so hard to do though when she puts out that quivering lower lip, showing her 2 little bottom teeth. Heartbreaking. And then that FACE! I just can't handle the cuteness. The reality of the matter is that as she gets older, I know there will be fewer and fewer times that I can't keep a straight face while disciplining, so for now I'll just enjoy the fact that our biggest problems are temper tantrums and occasional toy stealing and hair pulling. I hope I can pull it together in the next few years. I'm going to need a lot of practice since she's not getting any less cute.

Side note: My little baby is now 15 months and still near the top of the growth charts for height and weight. I still can't figure out how James and I have a tall baby. James figured that since she's close to 3 feet tall, she'll probably be 3 feet tall when she's 2, which means she'll be about 6 feet tall as an adult. haha I guess we'll see!